The present invention relates to paging systems, and more specifically to a system and method of dispatching an individual in a transaction establishment.
In many environments today, there is a growing need to quickly notify and direct key individuals. For example, in retail establishments, employees must be notified and directed to provide services such as customer assistance, employee assistance, and system failure recovery services. Even through multiple employees may be in the establishment at any given time, it would be advantageous to notify and direct a particular individual, based upon that individual""s location or expertise.
Some transaction establishments include electronic price label (EPL) systems. EPL systems typically include a plurality of EPLs for merchandise items in a store. EPLs typically display the price of corresponding merchandise items on store shelves and are typically attached to a rail along the leading edge of the shelves. A store may contain thousands of EPLs to display the prices of the merchandise items. The EPLs are coupled to a central server from where information about the EPLs is typically maintained in an EPL data file. Price information displayed by the EPLs is obtained from the PLU file.
EPLs today may be wired or wireless. Wireless EPLs may employ infrared or radio frequency transmitters to transmit acknowledgment signals acknowledging receipt of messages and to relay acknowledgment signals from other EPLs to receiving devices coupled to a main EPL computer.
It would be desirable to providing a system within a transaction establishment which could notify an individual to provide services within the store. It would also be desirable to provide a system which could determine the location of employees by locating their pagers. Finally, it would further be desirable to use an existing EPL system to locate and direct an employee.
In accordance with the teachings of the present invention, a system and method of dispatching an individual in a transaction establishment is provided.
The system includes telephone or other alert device for receiving a first message indicative of a problem, a recording device for recording a location of the problem from the first message, an electronic price label system including a number of transmitters in the transaction establishment for transmitting a second message addressed to a pager carried by the individual and a number of receivers in the transaction establishment for receiving a third message from the pager and a computer which determines a location of the pager from signal strength information from the third message and which sends a fourth message containing the location of the problem to the pager carried by the individual to alert the individual to respond to the problem.
The first message may be from a customer in the transaction establishment, an employee of the transaction establishment, or a system in the transaction establishment.
The dispatching method includes the steps of receiving a message indicative of a problem, recording a location of the problem from the message, locating pagers carried by the individual and other individuals in the transaction establishment including the substeps of transmitting a query message addressed to the pagers and sending responses to the query message by the pagers and receiving the responses by a plurality of receivers and determining locations of the pagers using signal strength information determined from the responses, choosing the individual to respond to the message, and sending a message containing the location of the problem to the pager carried by the individual to alert the individual to respond to the problem.
The choice of responding individual may be based upon the person""s skill or proximity to the problem.
It is accordingly an object of the present invention to provide a system and method of dispatching an individual in a transaction establishment.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a system and method of dispatching an individual in a transaction establishment which can locate the individual by locating a pager carried by the individual.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a system and method of dispatching an individual in a transaction establishment which can locate individuals carrying pagers and dispatch the closest individual.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a system and method of dispatching an individual in a transaction establishment which can determine the most skilled individual carrying a pager and dispatch the most skilled individual.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a system and method of dispatching an individual in a transaction establishment which makes use of an electronic price label system.